A Chinese human rights expert said on Friday that the human
rights report issued by the United States on May 17 reflected the
hypocrisy of the United States on the human rights issue, as it
made no mention of its own problems, including the systematic
mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners that shocked the world.
Dong Yunhu, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China
Society for Human Rights Studies, said the US report was issued at
a time when the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by US troops drew
worldwide condemnation.
The mistreatment ruined mankind's dignity, trampled the
international human rights conventions and international
humanitarian laws, and it constituted systematic and gross
violation of human rights, the expert said in an article toward the
US report.
The US report became the laughing stock of the world and it just
exposed US' hypocritical nature on human right issue before the
world people.
The US report, entitled "Supporting Human Rights and Democracy:
The US Record 2003-2004," summarizes in 270 pages US actions in 101
countries to promote freedom and to end abuses. The US State
Department had postponed its publication for 12 days after the
abuse scandal triggered a global uproar.
The abuse of prisoners by US soldiers is by no means confined to
Abu Ghraib prison or Iraq, but to other prisons under the control
of United States, according to Dong's article.
During the war in Afghanistan, US troops abused and humiliated
Taliban prisoners, it said.
The article quoted a May 9 Reuters report that US soldiers were
ordered to extort confessions through cruel torture at Abu Ghraib
Prison, indicating the most humiliating abuse was designed
specially by the US military intelligence department to crush the
will of the prisoners.
The article also cited a report published by the Washington
Post saying the abuse at the Iraqi prison is a product of the
US irrational interrogating system as the US Department of Defense
and Department of Justice approved in April of 2003 the use of 20
harsh interrogation methods at the US-controlled Guantanamo Bay
jail in Cuba.
Dong went on to say the mistreatment and humiliation of Iraqi
prisoners by US soldiers is a reflection of the inherent human
rights "sin" in United States itself, and an inevitable outcome of
the United States' long-term exertion of hegemony and power
politics in the world.
Racial prejudice is deep-rooted in the United States, and racial
prejudices against Arabs has become rampant in the United States
after the Sept.11 terror attacks.
The New York Times, one of the leading newspapers in
the United States, reported in its May 8 edition that abuses of
prisoners similar to that in Iraq often occur in the United
States.
On the unjustified US criticism of China's situation of human
rights, Dong said the unfounded criticism exhibited the political
bias and ulterior motives of the United States.
Dong listed China's unprecedented progress in human rights in
the past year, including the inclusion of the protection of human
rights and legitimate private properties into its Constitution.
The US unwarranted attacks on China's situation of human rights
have been driven by its ideological bias and politics to promote
hegemony, Dong said.
The United States does not want to see the stable development of
a Socialist China, nor the rise of a China that advocates peace and
development, he said.
Human rights has been used as a tool by the United States to
alter China's political system and the development orientation, the
author said.
The US report reflects typical of the unilateralism and double
standard the United States pursued in the human rights sector, the
article noted.
(Xinhua News Agency May 22, 2004)